Ask Rezzz

Jonathan Stark invited me onto his podcast where I unpacked being a platform specialist and how I built a productized service. I actually shared some of the fears I had along the way.-------------------

In the last episode you learned some things to delight and create the perception of value in your business. Today you will learn exactly what to deliver that validates that perception.I get asked how to get more clients and I often say that it’s not about “more clients”, it’s about “right clients.”I stress that it’s about getting the right quality clients.-------------------

It’s not about how many clients you have, it’s the quality of the client. You want to attract clients who have bigger budgets so that you can raise your rates and get out from that hamster wheel.-------------------

I think by now you that I’m big on communication and followup is the biggest piece of communication especially early on.In episode 135, I shared 11 ways to stand out as a freelancer. And while that’s a great list and got awesome feedback, the one thing that is most often attached to that is the word “the most.”I get asked “How to stand out as a freelancer the most?” so often that it’s astonishing.-------------------

Today I’m going to give you 3 very small, yet powerful tactics to improve your sales process as a freelancer.Quick, small, yet powerful tweaks you can make to your sales process that you can put into practice today.-------------------

During any part of the sales process, whether it’s a call, form, or email, there are critical and absolutes, when it comes to questions to ask.This is true if you are a developer, a designer, a marketer, or even a photographer.-------------------

The internet tends to fool us. It creates this illusion that everything is a click of the mouse and we’ll be bringing in 6 figures or that if we do these 7 things in 2019, we’ll be sitting on the beach in a month sipping umbrella drinks working 3 hours a day.This isn’t truth. There’s nothing about this that is valid. If a magic wand exists, then I haven’t found one.-------------------

With the holidays, I don’t know about you, but I still get asked about the business in a way that the person asking is skeptical that I am stable.To me, it’s a bit funny that they ask this because I’ve been in business since 2010 and often times this person I’m talking to has had multiple jobs with multiple companies over the same period of time.-------------------

So excited for today’s episode, because today will be the Ask Kim show.Kim Doyal is all about content. I’ve known her from the WordPress space for years but she’s since pivoted her business to focus more on helping business with their content and the Content Creators Community. She’s coined the phrase “Everything is Content” and since I know that you struggle with finding the time to and figuring out what to write about, I thought no better person to answer this than Kim.Just like you plan your projects, plan for your business, you want to also plan for your content and Kim has the strategies to help you. She’s going to share with you 2 strategies for making the time and then 2 easy strategies to get your content rolling.-------------------

If you haven’t yet listened to Episode 207 - How to overcome objections in sales?, I encourage you to do so.When encountering a “price buyer” there’s often nothing you can do to have them come up and see the value from a cost perspective.I don’t want to beat a dead horse on what to say when this happens because I dive into what you should be doing and how to direct them down the path of a referral in that episode.In Episode 156-What do I say when a potential client says I'm too expensive? -- yes, I get asked this question quite often -- you learn 3 strategies and how to tell if it's a negotiation tactic or not.What I’d like to share with you though is that if you are getting this often in your sales conversations, put your prices on your website, Facebook page, or wherever you get your leads from.If you get this objection more than a third of the time, then you aren’t clearly attracting the right kind of clients. You are also not setting the expectations early enough in the process.Your leads will go down, th

I’m going to get up on my soapbox here for a minute, so if you don’t want to hear it, scroll down a little bit.Over the past decade, I’ve run into many leads and clients that have had terrible experiences from flakey freelancers who have either disappeared, communicated poorly, didn’t deliver a project, or just didn’t set the expectations the client had.If you are a freelancer in business, please, please, do right by your clients. Be honest and don’t get in over your head.If you find yourself in a sticky spot, there’s nothing that communicating to the client can’t fix.If you are a freelancer and asking questions like “how come clients don’t respect my value?” or “how do I charge more than bottom dollar hourly rates?” The big reason is that of these flakey freelancers who don’t do right by their clients and then those clients are jaded and don’t want to be burned again.If nothing else is taken from this, please communicate clearly and often with your clients so that it raises the bar for all of us in the servi

You may have been in those projects when all is well and the correspondence is good going back and forth and then crickets.Radio silence from the client.You’ve sent a few emails that have gone unanswered. Maybe even a few calls have gone unreturned.What do you do next?There are a few things, but first, keep in mind that no matter how good the relationship is remember that you really don’t know the full story of your client.So before your brain starts jumping to conclusions, be empathetic first and foremost.## Are you ok?First, you want to make contact, probably via email with a simple “Are you ok?” type of email.Something simple, like:> I haven’t heard from you in a while. I called X times and sent emails on A, B, and C but haven’t heard back. I just wanted to make sure everything is ok? Please let me know so I know everything is good or if there’s anything that I can help with.## A nudge to move forwardAfter having sent that and then a couple of days go by and you still haven’t heard back.> I know thin

Last week I recorded an episode of Live in the Feast with Andrew Askins. He’s a co-founder of Krit, a company that helps non-technical founders build their idea into a product.Andrew asked this great question and I thought I’d share it here since one the episode won’t be released for another few weeks. And two, after last week’s series on being better at sales, this fits in perfectly.For a little bit of context to how Andrew asked me this, we were talking about crafting our messaging around the company by who we serve, why they should care, and how they benefit from it.As we were chatting we both agreed that the messaging is marketing. It’s who we target because it’s who we know we can serve n the most successful way.But shockingly, that isn’t always who we work with. When you specialize your business, you may be afraid of “the money being left on the table” when in actuality, you repel the bad clients and attract those people that can resonate with who you are.So as a lead comes to the business, and maybe th

This is the classic chicken or the egg scenario. Doing these 3 things will raise the bar immediately and have you stand out from the other 3 vendors your lead is talking with.For the context of this episode, this is for those that are just starting out, maybe still full-time and looking to go freelance.This could also be for those trying a new service or piece to their business. Maybe even niching down or specializing your business to where you haven’t had any experience in before.So many of you in this area find yourself in a chicken or the egg scenario, where you talk about how you have no case studies or portfolio pieces. You don’t have experience because you haven’t done this type of work before.You find yourself paralyzed because of it. You don’t move forward with anything because you get stuck.I want to share with you 3 tips that don’t require anything other than a conversation with a client or lead when you don’t have the experience.Find out why they are talking to youUnless they are a friend of yours

In episode A207 - How to overcome objections in sales, you briefly learned about leaning into what they want and then directing them down the right path.Leaning in, or being empathetic during a sales process is really about giving the lead what they want.Whether they want the lowest cost, the best value, to comparison shop, etc, it’s in your best interest to give them what they want.When you think about sales, instead of thinking about closing every deal, think about how to have them leave your conversation in a better place.You aren’t going to convince anyone they need you. They have to realize that themselves.If they feel they need something that you don’t have or do, the best thing to do is to put them on the path to getting that.One of my favorite quotes is from Pippin Williamson founder of Sandhills Development.“If it’s a hard sell, let them go.”If it’s hard to have a conversation with someone and suggest a course of action, how do you think a project will be working together?Ever have a lead say “I don’

RFPs, or Request for Proposals, is something as a freelancer or consultant you should stay away from. An RFP is a document that talks about a project and asks you to write a proposal on how to solve it.In the previous two episodes you learned to protect your sales process, and ultimately your business, by only pushing value buyers and those that give you a firm “yes” at the end of the sales call to the proposal stage.RFPs are the complete opposite of this. In short, responding to an RFP, have you reading through a document explaining the project from the perspective of the company and then drafting up a proposal with your time estimates, milestones, due dates, company history, and questions you have to bid on the project.Then that company shows all the responses and selects what they feel is the best option.If you are responding to RFPs, this is the epitome of the proposal writing business.If a buyer presents to you an RFP, full stop. Protect your time! Protect your profits!Simply say “Before we get into this

The most important piece of your sales process is to overcome objections and direct the lead down the appropriate path they want to be on.If you haven’t already done so, go back and listen to How to get better at sales?, where you will learn the first 2 steps to getting better at sales.Learn from every sales callIdentify the type of buyer you are talking withBy the end of this episode, you will learn the most important piece of sales. That is how to overcome any objection to the 5 buyer types we identified in the last episode.Once you key in on identifying which type you are speaking to, you want to embrace them. Lean in to what they want and give them exactly what they ask for.STEP 3 - Put the buyer on the right pathWith any of them, you don't want to waste your time in writing a proposal unless you get a firm "yes" from the at the end of the call. You aren't in business to write proposals. If they balk at the time and cost investment and still ask for a proposal, tell them that "this is the proposal, nothin

"I'm an introvert and I don't like sales" -- "How do I close more deals?" -- "How do I get better at sales?" By the end of this episode you’ll know the 3 steps to do just that."I get a lot of folks on the phone, but think I should be closing more." This is something that I hear quite often and it’s the wrong statement to be making.You want your sales process to eliminate leads from becoming clients. You want each stage of your sales to be a locked gate. Keeping out the leads that shouldn’t be your clients and only letting through those leads that you really should be working with.Getting better at sales is difficult, but not impossible.It requires practice.It requires close attention to details.It also requires you to accept that this is the most business-y part of your business. Which means, you have to build up a bit of a thick skin here. Don’t take rejection personally, instead learn from it and adjust.There are 2 things that helped me get better at sales.Knowing the type of buyer I'm talking withBeing abl

Finally it’s landed. The #Gutepocalypse! I say that in jest because this has been the biggest anticipated release since Star Wars Phantom Menace.WordPress 5.0 is what I’m referencing here, and before you tune out because you aren’t in the WordPress space, I encourage you to stay tuned because this is not about that as much as it’s about technology and your clients.When Apple released the iPhone back in 2007, most people with a Motorola Razor said “that is huge and what would I even do with that?”When Amazon released the Echo in 2015 and I bought it, my wife said, “what’s the point of this thing? There’s no way I’m ever going to talk to this.” Now she’s using it all day and much more than I ever have.In case you aren’t in the WordPress space, 5.0 is the release of Gutenberg. It’s the brand new default editor for WordPress, which has the whole place in an uproar. It’s been this way for a couple of years to be honest.Some people hate it, some people love it - both have very valid reasons. When asked, I usually r

Avani Miryala is a UX designer who specialized in the Cryptocurrency space. She’s the host of Beyond the Status Quo podcast.In this episode we discuss the reasons why finding your freelance niche can increase your revenue, strengthen your relationships with clients and create a smoother funnel for recurring business.We connected on Instagram and when she told me the name of her podcast and invited me to come on, I had no choice. It was a no brainer. If anything, I had to be a part of anything named Beyond the Status Quo.In this episode, I had a chance to talk about the how to find your niche.In case you don’t want to read the rest of this, you can check out the full episode for all the details.In the episode, I shared a variety of things including:Strategies for finding your freelance niche and methods for developing your specialty How to introduce your niche to your network and the price tag that comes along with itBest practices for circumventing negative emotions attached to client and revenue ‘FOMO’Specif